Create Your Own Core Sample!

How to Make Your Own Chicxulub Core Sample

1. Step 1

   Take the lid off your jar and pop it to one side. Stick your long strip of paper to the side of your jar with tape.

   Using your pen, draw two small lines splitting your label up into three equal sections. Make sure you leave enough room on the label to write what each layer is!

   In the bottom section, closest to the bottom of the jar, label this third 'Impact Melt'.

   In the middle section, label this 'Suevite'.

   In the top section, closest to the top of the jar, label this 'Paleogene Sediments'.

   At the line between the top and middle sections, write next to it 'K-Pg Boundary'.

2. Step 2

   For the first layer, cover the bottom of your jar with gravel so you can't see through it. We recommend putting the gravel in by hand to avoid damaging your glass jar!

   Then, pour in the sand to cover the gravel and fill it up to the top of the first section. Use your teaspoon to press down the sand to create a flat and even surface.

   The sand and gravel layer represents the granite of Earth and the melted rock fusing together after the impact. This impact melt formed around five to ten minutes after impact!

3. Step 3

   Mix some of your sand, soil and gravel together - remember to leave some soil for the rest of the core sample. Pour the mixture into your jar and fill it up to the next line.

   This layer is called Suevite and is made of Breccia - this is broken up pieces of rock stuck together. It formed when the ocean rushed back into the crater, bringing in debris from the ocean and the impact. This debris took up to 24 hours to settle creating this layer!

4. Step 4

   Using the pretty stones or shells, cover the previous layer but try not to stack them on top of one another. This thin layer is a really special layer, called the K-Pg Boundary. 

   The element iridium is rare on Earth, and when we find a layer of it in rock, or in a core sample, something big like an asteroid must have brought the iridium to Earth. This is the evidence used to prove that the Chicxulub impact helped to wipe out the dinosaurs. It is called the K-Pg Boundary because it shows the end of the Cretaceous Period (K) and the start of the Paleogene Period (Pg). 

   It took around 20 years after the impact for this layer to form as the remnants from the impact slowly settled.

5. Step 5

   Fill the rest of the jar with soil and use your teaspoon to press down the layer to help compact it.

   Life started to return to the crater just a few years after the Chicxulub impact, with a full ecosystem by 30,000 years later. We can see the evidence of life returning as microfossils - these are really, really tiny fossils from microscopic sea creatures in the ocean. They slowly fell to the ocean floor, taking millions of years to form this layer!

   We are using soil to represent life from the impact to today in the crater.

   All you need to do now is screw on the lid of your jar nice and tight!